International ISTC Agency

Officially founded in 2008, The International ISTC Agency is responsible for the promotion, coordination and supervision of the International Standard Text Code (ISTC) standard and system. Bowker, Nielsen, CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) and IFFRO (The International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations) are founding members of the International ISTC Agency

The International ISTC Agency serves as the ISTC Registration Authority, and shall provide the services described in a) to i) below:

a) Promote, co-ordinate and supervise the ISTC system in compliance with the specifications of this International Standard.

b) Appoint appropriate organizations as ISTC registration agencies and revoke such appointments as necessary.

c) Allocate unique registration agency elements for use within ISTC assignments and maintain an accurate register of the registration agency elements that have been assigned.

d) Maintain, through ISTC agencies, registers of ISTC numbers and their associated ISTC metadata and administrative metadata.

e) Develop, implement, monitor and enforce policies and procedures governing the operations of ISTC registration agencies and the process of ISTC registration by those agencies, including any fees associated with that process.

f) Develop, implement, monitor and enforce policies and procedures regarding access to the ISTC registers maintained by the ISTC registration agencies. There shall be a strong presumption in favor of maintaining the confidentiality of administrative data.

g) Facilitate the review and resolution of duplicate applications for or registration of textual works.

h) Review and decide on appeals of decisions made by ISTC registration agencies in such matters as:

1. rejection of ISTC applications;

2. disputes concerning the accuracy of the ISTC metadata for a work;

i) Develop documentation for users of the ISTC system.